[wizz0bang]

Good news. 10.4.2 has gone a long way towards improving the responsiveness of my Mac! It's still no where near my old XP machine in terms of snap... but a good step in the right direction. No major issues of yet with the update, though I've only been running it for two hours or so.

The fans are still pain (on WAY too often and WAY too loud) and my biggest single gripe about the 12" PB. Between the fans and the screen, I'm almost ready to sell it and buy a 15" PB. Apple, let me program the fans to stay off until 55C Please! There is a trick posted on hardmac.com that may help. It invloves getting a file from a previous version of OSX and overwriting it on Tiger. I'm not yet brave enough to try it as I still won't have control over when they go on.

In other news... I recommended a Mac mini to a relative who keeps calling me for comptuer help with his (gasp) Windows ME system. See, I don't hate Macs

[SEkker]

What I find interesting are the comments from these switchers - and I agree with them on several major accounts.

First, where my experience differs -- stability. I just had to restart my PB17 after a week or so of running. The last restart was because I installed a new battery. I run photoshop, acrobat, iLife, and the usual suspects of office, mail, safari, etc. Some of these were unstable -- the apps crashed -- which were all fixed when I did an archive and reinstall, took a total of about 30 minutes to reinstall the entire OS. If you are experiencing regular OS crashes, there is a problem with your software and/or hardware. If you are having some stability issues with your specific applications, then I cannot really say -- you use some software I don't, and I cannot compare whether it's stable or not. But my experience is photoshop is VERY stable.

Where I DO agree is the processor speed and GUI user experience - windows machines seem as quick as the OS 9 finder used to be. But in my experience on our XP machines, launching and using more than one or two apps simply makes the machine unstable [admittedly, it runs some specialty apps, but those apps become unstable when we launch other apps like for our canon camera, etc]. Whereas my OS X machine, even if the initial launching is slow, is stable running Mail, iTunes, Safari, word, powerpoint, photoshop, acrobat and preview (a common setting at any given time on my machine). Switching between these launched apps is VERY fast. But launching even a small word document is unbelievably tedious. And don't get me started on the joys of powerpoint on a mac. The ridiculous handicap installed in Excel on the mac has been well documented elsewhere. These bottlenecks are not a dealbreaker to me, however. In my view, the windows machines are quick, the mac is simply faster in the long-run getting work done.

I am convinced Apple's CPU roadmap called for at least 1 GHz G4 CPUs for 10.2; but moto's problems starting kicking in, and 10.3 was written JUST to try to address the bottleneck in speed due to the CPU restrictions (and to buy some time whilst we suffered tiny incremental CPU speed increases - my 2.5 year old machine runs 1 GHz, current models only 67% faster in CPU speed and less in net speed). Fixing the OS helped a little, but the finder still sucks IMHO.

For anyone that's unsure, go to an Apple Store and run a duallie G5 -- it's VERY responsive. Not as good as a windows machine, but still quite a bit better than the same OS on even the faster laptop.

OS X is, in many ways, ahead of the hardware. I will reserve comments on the comparison with windows until Longhorn is out and the macs run on the same intel hardware. Until then, I consider my Mac PB17 to be underpowered with the mac OS potential still not completely tapped, at least on laptops.

[zanyterp]

i don't know if this is the right place to post/ask, but seems to be in the thread.....can i ask why the finder sucks SEkker?

more general...i have heard several people say that they really do not care for the dock (to put it mildly) and i think this has been said on this thread too...why is the dock such an awful experience/GUI element? I don't mean to be ignorant on either of these, i just happen to like the dock and think the finder works well.

thanks for your opinions/thoughts!

[SEkker]

Originally Posted by zanyterp

i don't know if this is the right place to post/ask, but seems to be in the thread.....can i ask why the finder sucks SEkker?

more general...i have heard several people say that they really do not care for the dock (to put it mildly) and i think this has been said on this thread too...why is the dock such an awful experience/GUI element? I don't mean to be ignorant on either of these, i just happen to like the dock and think the finder works well.

thanks for your opinions/thoughts!

I find the dock works fine for me as well.

As for the finder, if you've never used a mac os6/7/8/9 machine, you probably don't know what we're talking about. On the same hardware, the finder via OS9 is MUCH quicker than OSX on the same machine. No spinning beachball equivalent delays, except loading apps (which I still think was also faster under OS9). No waits on pull-down menus, etc. I agree that ever since 10.3, Apple's updates have regularly provided speed boosts in this area - in part because I think they know it's something immediately noticeable to someone switching from Windows or OS9. If you are asking me technically why it's so slow, I cannot really say. Everyone blames quartz and other graphics-loads on the mac os -- in which case, it's really wierd because Apple should then be able to allow the user to reduce this aspect (kind of like reducing color depth on monitors to 256) to add responsiveness. I'm not an OS engineer, so maybe that's just my oversimplified view. With every OS release, I keep expecting Apple to do the classic Jobs-ism -- praise their revised and superfast finder, where all they've done is just fix a problem they generated in OSX in the first place...

[tie]

(I'm the OP.) While most of my quibbles in the original review were with Mac OS X, not the Powerbook itself, now it is the opposite. I like OS X quite a bit, I'm not entirely sure why. Mostly I guess it is just a nice experience to use. Spotlight is one feature I use all the time, even though it could use work. Quicksilver is very nice. The Mac OS, and most applications I use, too, still seem more buggy than the windows equivalents. There are so many interface inconsistencies even in Apple's own applications (e.g., tabbing through dialog boxes doesn't work in iTunes).

The fan noise I've learned to deal with — sometimes there is some app which didn't quit properly and is hogging CPU, so I quit it in Activity Monitor; other times I just have to put the computer to sleep for five minutes.

But what kills me is the horrible, horrible screen. It hasn't actually gotten any worse, I don't think, but it has started to really bug me a lot. It is so dim, and the view angle is so poor.. My office friend wanted to look at my Mac so I was showing it to him, and he couldn't get over how bad the screen looks next to an IBM T42. The little dongle required for attaching external monitors also drives me nuts since the first thing I want to do when sitting down anywhere is to hook up a decent monitor; fortunately, it came with two dongles (one digital, one analog), but I'm still having to carry one around with me.

[wookitus]

I don't think so. I see this all the time. If I'm copying a large number of files, and am too impatient to wait for it to finish before starting the next copy, then I'm beachballed. If I let the first copy finish, then things work fine (so I don't see why unusual characters could be the problem).

I see this all the time too. This is a really annoying bug.

[zanyterp]

Originally Posted by SEkker

I find the dock works fine for me as well.

As for the finder, if you've never used a mac os6/7/8/9 machine, you probably don't know what we're talking about. On the same hardware, the finder via OS9 is MUCH quicker than OSX on the same machine. No spinning beachball equivalent delays, except loading apps (which I still think was also faster under OS9). No waits on pull-down menus, etc. I agree that ever since 10.3, Apple's updates have regularly provided speed boosts in this area - in part because I think they know it's something immediately noticeable to someone switching from Windows or OS9. If you are asking me technically why it's so slow, I cannot really say. Everyone blames quartz and other graphics-loads on the mac os -- in which case, it's really wierd because Apple should then be able to allow the user to reduce this aspect (kind of like reducing color depth on monitors to 256) to add responsiveness. I'm not an OS engineer, so maybe that's just my oversimplified view. With every OS release, I keep expecting Apple to do the classic Jobs-ism -- praise their revised and superfast finder, where all they've done is just fix a problem they generated in OSX in the first place...

sorry for the delayed reply....i grew up using mac and though i didn't use system 6 much; i was very well equipped and used to using 7/8/9 before the switch to 10. i think i can see where you are coming from. when you refer to there not being a spinning beachball equivalent, are you referring to the frequency that the beachball visits (much more than the stop watch, i agree) or that it represents(?) something else?

thanks for your answer and clarifying that for me!

[neilio]

Interesting posts about the differences between the 12" and the 15". I have a 15" and it's just great - no major issues whatsoever, though I really do wish it was lighter. I've been tossing around the idea of getting a 12" at some point, but because my 15" isn't very old (just over a year) I think I'll hold off until the first laptops with Intel chips are released instead.

As for the finder: Perhaps this is a bit tactless, but I'd like to point out a piece of software created by a client I do work for. It's called Path Finder and I've heard a lot of positive responses from switchers and people who want more out of their file browser.

It's not a 100% finder replacement, but it works (in my opinion) quite well. Check my sig for the URL.

Again, apologies for the self-promo but I thought this might be useful to those complaining about the Finder.

Neil

[madmacgames]

you need to calibrate your screen. If you don't have a good eye, this can be difficult to do, and the built in calibrator doesn't give really fine control. Try this pre-calibrated screen profile for the 12" powerbook. It works well as-is for me:

http://www.simongbrown.com/photoblog...615422000.html

As to some of your other complaints, they seem to deal alot with 3rd party applications, which is not the fault of Apple or your Mac or the OS. If you take something and cover it with horse-shit, well you can be sure that you'll just end up with a steaming pile of horse-shit. Doesn't take rocket science to figure that out.

Also, you really need to stop all the bitching about every little problem you encounter. Every minute you spend bitching, you could better spend doing a little research or something to help solve it instead.

[Thinine]

I don't really have much to say about the content of this thread, but some of you idiots need to learn what a paragraph is. Holy crap.

[ff11]

I actually find OS X quite responsive compared to Windows on what I consider relatively equivalent hardware (PB 17" 1.33 vs. generic PC desktop p4 1.8 running Win XP or Win 98) in my extremely unscientific use. I also am quite happy with Safari and find it very fast and stable in general (but there are several sites it does not play well with, including Hotmail). One complaint I have with the OS (most likely with the Finder part, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about which part is responsible) which may have affected Tie's experience is that I think OS X has serious issues handling a folder with huge numbers of files in it. Nothing brings the OS to it's knees faster or more consistently than a folder with thousands of files in it. I once read an explanation of why this is the case back when it was still being compared to OS 9 (which didn't face that issue), but can't remember the reason anymore.

[cvbcvb]

Originally Posted by tie

My review of my new Mac Powerbook G4 12":

First impressions
The operating system: This is very unstable, worse than Windows XP but perhaps similar to WIn2k. I've had only one or two true operating system crashes in the few weeks I've been using this computer, but I've had many more Finder crashes and from my perspective the Finder is part of the OS.

Its been mentioned before, but get new RAM. All the finder crashes I've seen have been solved by getting good RAM - run the Hardware Test and if that freezes then continue to try new RAM - took me 3 different RAM's before I found a good one. Runs perfect.

CVB

[madmacgames]

Hey tie, where do you get your weight specs at?? The lightest IBM T43 is 4.7lbs in travel mode (the battery + travel bezel and not optical drive). With the optical drive it is 5.12lbs.

The 12" powerbook is 4.6lbs with BOTH the battery and optical drive installed.

The only one you listed that actually weighs less than the 12" powerbook is the Fujitsu, which is 3.8lbs with the optical drive removed, and 4.3lbs with it installed.

[chrisutley]

All the crashing and bugs reported in this thread make me wonder what the heck is going on. I know a ton of people running Tiger and Jaguar and I have never heard of anything like this, nothing even close. Something is not quite right here. I'm guessing a combination of hardware and user error. The Mac/OS X is FAR from perfect, but this user experience is FAR from the norm too.

Complaining about X11 not being installed by default is kind of ridiculous. If you needed X11 sol bad you should have verified it wsa there. It's not exactly a mainstream app, and I am positive the majority of Mac users don't know what it is - and do not wish to install it.

[chrisutley]

Originally Posted by cvbcvb

Its been mentioned before, but get new RAM. All the finder crashes I've seen have been solved by getting good RAM - run the Hardware Test and if that freezes then continue to try new RAM - took me 3 different RAM's before I found a good one. Runs perfect.

CVB

I agree ... that would explain a number of the oddities.

[mdporter]

This is an interesting thread. I have said for some time over on arstechnica that Apple needs to significantly improve the 12" screens they use in the PB and iBook. They appear to be using the same screen over and over again... the panel they are using is at least a three year old design.

PC laptops are significantly ahead in screen technology right now. Even the 15" and 17" PB's are using older designs at this point.

Comarisons to PC laptops... all well and good. Is that Panasonic lightweight running a 1.2ghz processor going to run iMovie and iDVD and be able to produce a nice looking DVD in a reasonable amount of time? I think not. It certainly isn't going to play world of warcraft well with integrated graphics. It all depends on the software you use.

Speaking of software, I think the OP said he was running virtual PC to convert RAW files. There are RAW converters available for the mac platform. Do a search on Macintouch.com because some time ago there was a discussion of the RAW format and software to work with the files.

Crashing. You either have software or hardware issues. I support about 400 macs in my company, mostly 10.3 and 10.4 now, with some 10.2 and OS9 machines in the mix. To eliminate crashing for customers I'll look at memory or the OS first. Depending on my gut feeling the memory will be swapped out and tested in mac, or simply removed temporarily to test the OS install. A good memory tester is memtest and it is free.

If the memory looks good the system is either brought up to date or reimaged (with a high level disk reformat).

Bottom line is that the OS should not be crashing on a daily basis. My only crashes in the last two years have either been beta OS X releases, or third party software problems. There has been an occasional Safari crash with web sites. Things like mail, finder ops, etc, have generally been rock solid.

I think Tie has posted a very reasonable review of his PB. His gripes (fan noise, screen quality) are 100% legitimate and something that Apple needs to fix. His other gripes sound to me like there are some problems perhaps with his RAM.

I sincerely hope that Apple can do something about the screens and fan noice. My old 667 PB is getting old and in need of replacement.

[jock]

Just a couple of cents on the powerpoint differences, apparently Micksoft changed the drawing in office 2004 to openGL, which is as slow as buggery. Try it for yourself, take a reasonably large PPS file and open it up under Office 97, then try it on a mac under Office X and 2004 and you will see, dare I say Snappy, fast, and bloody slow.
Yes Keynote has a nice interface and some neat features but this is only a 2.0 product.
As for your finder crashes, I would check your RAM as at the UNI that I teach in we run multiple labs with Macs and the stability often astounds my windows colleagues.

[furi]

I have a hunch that most of problems you guys are seeing with the 12" PowerBooks are related to the temperature of units while using it.

[MarcoF-Foto]

Okay, I have a different view on matters, I think.

i switched in 2002 from Windows to an iBook and later to a Powerbook G4 12", the first gen (867MHz)..
Only with my iBook i experienced kernel problems, on my powerbook I've never in the past 2.5 years had a kernel panic.

The pb came with OSX.2 installed, and I've upgraded to Panther and recently to Tiger 10.4
i am a heave photoshop user, so the first thing that struck me from the original poster was that VirtualPC was used to convert RAW files?? There are PLENTY of RAW editors/convertors for OSX available, and some RAW files are even supported in Finder.

Last year i bought a 1Gig slice to extend the RAM to the maximum. Helps a lot, but I wish for even more RAM.

The applications do take some time to start up, but only the first time you start them. After that, the applications are "preloaded" (?) and starting them up doesn't take that long.
However, you should take into account you're actually running a unix version, which is by design not meant to start and stop things. No, you should just keep everything running (but then you run against the physical RAM barrier of course).

I NEVER turn my powerbook off. It is always on or in sleep mode (close lid, it actually works! in contrast with Windows whose powermgt is a disaster - I know, I still have an office windows laptop: high end HP/compaq thing). The only time I need to reboot the OS is when I have installed a system update. Otherwise, I never ever reboot.
What I run?
Photoshop, Bibble Pro, Extensis Portfolio, Pages, Safari, Mail, iCal, Quicktime/WMP for the internet pr0n eh movies, AdiumX for chat, iTunes for mp3s and Acquisition for stuff. I notice some codecs just wont work on Mac, but alas, I dont really bother either. I prefer quicktime over all other formats anyway.

I do have to agree on the screen. Compared to "superblack TFT" screens like Sony Vaio, the Apple screen is rubbish. But I have calibrated it (using colorsync only) and colorwise it is quite good. But the environment can be very disturbing, I prefer to use the screen in dim environments. For photoshopping i connect a 21" Apple Studio CRT. funnily, connecting an external monitor like that consumes more energy, so you need to be on power cord (at least, if you use the powerbook with the lid closed).

Regarding fans.. I use my powerbook on battery a lot of times, and then there is hardly any fan, except when using CPU eating processes. On powercord, there is a lot more fan noise.
If your pb just stops without warning, there is something wrong with your powermanager or battery. I've had the same problem, and resetting the power manager helped out, but later it turned out to be my battery was nearly dead.

Airport reception is indeed not so great. But this is really due to the design. Aluminium (or any metal) is not really good as enclosure if you use wireless. I noticed that using a newer model base station (I don't have an apple base station) helps out a lot. I now have a late model Linksys and reception has increased a lot compared to my older 3Com office connect wireless. And quickertec has an external antenna for the 12" powerbook. I have one, not installed yet, but that should also help increase reception.

i've switched to OSX, and really don't want to go back, except for an OS like BeOS, which was my favourite OS before OSX.. alas, BeOS is dead(ish), so the best alternative is OSX, imo.

as I said, I use the pwoerbook/OSX professionally for my photography business, and I couldn't wish a better computer (okay, a better screen and faster CPU) for the work i do. no more troubles with drivers, rebooting, virii etc.. and it is so nice and portable. i just bung it into my photobag and carry it with me all the time.

Would i buy it again? well, I think I'd go for the 15" next time. Mainly because there's more RAM space possible and the screen is better. i just wished the next pwoerbook iteration would feature a 13" widescreen screen with superblackpitch TFT. Then I'd go for that one

[mudzilla]

i use a 12" Powerbook 1Ghz with 768MB Ram at home.

I use it mostly for web browsing, email and music, but when I do have to work on it I've found it to be great (photoshop, flash, golive, dreamweaver, freehand, suitcase, safari/firefox... and iTunes, natch). The thing I like about it the most is the size. i can sling it in my rucksack with a mouse and I'm good to go anywhere.

I've turned up at other offices and got the Powerbook out to do work and you can see the PC bods flexing their latest and greatest PC laptops, which are all very nice until they start having to find USB leads for the external DVD drives, or they can't copy files off because they've lost the floppy disc drive, it didn't come with wifi or bluetooth.

I've got everything I need on this Powerbook, and the jokes on them when the works done, burnt to DVD/copied over the network, hell - bluetoothed to a phone, and I'm out the door.

It does help that the OS is awesome, and easily the best thing to use IMO.

Yes, it could be smaller, but then it'd be harder to work for extended periods of time. A little bigger and you'd lose the 'pick up in one hand and wander downstairs' feeling. When I'm writing or reviewing, I usually end up having sat in about 6-7 different places in my house because I can just pick up and go.

It'll never fit everyones needs. and you have to make your decision based on many factors. I'm very happy with mine, and I'll definiately buy another Powerbook of a similar form factor, be it Intel or G4, I'm not too concerned.

[jreades]

I agree with the people who suggest there's a hardware issue in there somewhere. I'm writing this from a three year old TiBook that is rock solid *except* when hardware issues come into play. May I suggest the following:

1. Run the disk utility after booting from CD/DVD -- I would run both the file system check and the permissions check.

2. Try switching out RAM (did you by extra from Crucial? Don't) and seeing if one of the chips is faulty.

3. Try taking it to the Genius Bar in your local Apple store and having them run some diagnostics on it.

The behaviours that your listing are certainly not normal for any machine, let alone a Mac and to me suggest that something is seriously wrong with the machine. In my experience the hard drive is the biggest source of problems -- my first one (a Toshiba) failed completely (I now run the SMART app that sits in the Apple Menu as a reminder), and my second just mysteriously got a bee in its bonnet one day that led to three mysterious crashes in the course of four hours before I ran the disk utility and found the problem. Since then, no crashes.

My other issue (which, I believe is unique to the old TiBooks) was that the cable connecting the RAM under the keyboard to the motherboard on the other side of the chassis was shorting out on the chassis and leading to completely ambiguous issues depending on what part of the RAM short-circuited. After months of frustration and research, two minutes with a screwdriver fixed the problem forever.

I do believe that Apple's quality control isn't what it used to be. Still better than Dell's (they shipped my sister an XP laptop with a built-in wireless card but forgot to install the drivers for it and I spent a good $30 on trans-Atlantic calls trying to figure it out), but nowhere near what it used to be in the days of the beige boxes.

Anyway, I do appreciate the thorough reviews -- I've helped a number of people switch and feel that it's important to understand what those used to 98/2000/XP are expecting and where the Mac [doesn't] deliver in order to set expectations appropriately. No one that I've helped switch has evern come back and said "This is crap, I want my PC back" but I think it's only because I worked hard with them to figure out the right hardware.... saying "Dude, go back to windoze you dumb wanker" is hardly helpful if you want Apple to rule the computing world (actually a scary thought, far prefer them as a struggling 3rd or 4th ranked manufacturer since it keeps them nimble and innovative).

jon

[jimparshall]

Wow, sounds like you are having one bad experience after another. I had the same problem with my first Powerbook (a Ti book) a couple years back. It was related to a bad memory chip.

I have now had 4 different Powerbooks (including the 17" I have sitting before me as I type). On the third (a 12") I bought a new memory chip and presto the same basic crashing, graphics, instability problems you desribe occured. Just like the Ti, I replaced the RAM and then everything "just worked".

I have had this 17" now for awhile and it has the same hard drive image my original 12" (that's 2 Macs ago) had. Yep, had a 12" with Jaguar and then upgraded to a new 12" and just copied that entire drive to the new one. Then when Panther came out upgraded that. Then bought a new 17" and copied the entire drive image over to the drive in the 17". Then when Tiger came out upgraded that. I can not remember the last time I had a kernel panic (OS Crash). OK, check the log files for kernel dump and did have a panic on August 8, 2004. So nearly a year.

Yes, finder can get fussy about copying many files folders at one time. But, I have not run into this in a long time. Today, I moved a folder with 56,000 files in it (and many folders in it as well though in Unix they are the same thing) and no problems. I regularly work with thousands upon thousands of files. Seriously, I am looking now at my backup log (wrote my own backup system LONG STORY) and it shows currently I have 597,253 pictures, 36,303 movies, and 54,156 text files on my main data array. This is backed up regularly and since I switched to Mac OS X three or so years ago, never, ever, ever had a problem at all.

Far from attempting to tell you you are an idiot or some lame stuff like that, I am merely saying that I have found OS X to be far superior to Win XP or 2000 at handling large numbers of files. I did have some problems before Jaguar at getting files copied from a Windows machine (though not recently) so I just took a firewire drive to the WIndows Box and copied the files directly to a Mac OS X formatted partion on it.

Please, take that little Mac in for service. It sounds like it is sick and I want you to be another happy Mac owner, not saddened by the machine upon your desk (and lap).

Jim Parshall, MCSD

[jkira]

I do agree with a couple of points that were made in the review. The 12 inch powerbook 1.5 GHz is very noisy, however, I'm no longer as bothered by it as when I first got it a month ago. The screen does seem darker at the edges, especially the bottom which I wasn't too impressed with.

Mine wouldn't even sit flat on my desk which really irritated me. It wobbled on a diagonal from the front right to back left. The gap was approximately 1mm! I put it on a glass table to see if my desk was the problem - unfortunately it wasn't. Having contacted the store about it and received an unacceptable answer that Apple Canada wouldn't replace the system under warranty. I was told that I'd have to pay a re-stocking fee if I wanted to return it (and I wouldn't be able to open the box to verify a new one!?!), I decided to take matters into my own hands put the entire front right corner over the side of my table and gently applied pressure to the top of it to straighten it out - not for the faint of heart, but it worked perfectly.

I had to change the 1Gb stick of Kingston RAM that I upgraded as I was getting a lot of screen freezes. Since then everything has worked perfectly. I'm very happy with the purchase overall and I'm loving the portability of this little machine. If there were a couple of things I would add to my wish list for this little powerbook I would ask for a backlit keyboard, a better graphics card and the option of a faster processor.

[mudzilla]

yeah, i have to flex mine occasionally to get it to sit level again. (heh, flex my 12"!)

always good to hear from happy 12"ers!

[buffalolee]

I have a 15" Powerbook for productivity work (word processing, e-mails, movies, etc). I just tend to be more productive on my Mac than any Windows machines.

I use my desktop PC for games (Battlefield 2) and experimenting work (Oracle). You can have the best of both worlds if you wish. Just build a small desktop, and you won't miss a single thing. So go ahead, and build yourself a $1,500 gaming machine.

[tracemhunter]

im glad im not getting a 12". im buying a 15" this weekend just because of the widescreen. i too have a pc i just built for gaming even though i am finally growing up lol. this is going to be my first mac and the only time i have even used the os is in the apple store. i am having troubles finding the right brand of ram to buy. i have corsair in this machine and it works fine. i think i might go with that. i hope i do not experience the same problems you 12ers have because i have been a mac basher for years but i have changed and hope to stay this way.

[ff11]

Originally Posted by jimparshall

Yes, finder can get fussy about copying many files folders at one time. But, I have not run into this in a long time. Today, I moved a folder with 56,000 files in it (and many folders in it as well though in Unix they are the same thing) and no problems. I regularly work with thousands upon thousands of files.

Jim Parshall, MCSD

Wow! I'm impressed. Did you do it in the Finder? I seem to have trouble dealing with folders with a fraction of that many files in them, and I don't think it's just my personal computer (I've also tried it at various stores on their latest offereings. (altough you never know with computers in stores, they let people like me mess with their systems!)

Seriously, do you have any suggestions, or do I need to try and troubleshoot my system?

[slffl]

Are you just barely switching to mac after 1,000+ posts?

Anyway, you have some seriously bugged machine because none of this stuff happens on my 17" PB. I got it over 2 years ago and have been using it side-by-side a PC running Windows XP for 8 hours a day. XP doesn't even COMPARE to OSX! OSX's UI and usability kills XP. Not that i care if someone doesn't like it because I don't want a bunch of fanboys switching over to macs.

[tie]

Okay, I have had various more issues since last posting (e.g., laptop won't start up after going through airport security, this has happened several times now, is it the X-rays??). But I'll post something constructive for a change instead of just complaining.

Here is the profile I made of my internal LCD. This was made with the Monaco Eye-One Display hardware calibration tool, and gives decently accurate prints with several services.

Dell 1905fp


Powerbook G4 12 inch


Above I've posted screenshots from calibrating the powerbook and the Dell external LCD monitor. Note the signicantly smaller gamut for the powerbook (right half); this goes a long way toward explaining why I can't get good blues and browns out. (Note: This isn't a fair comparison since of course external monitors are better than laptop monitors, more useful would be a comparison with a different laptop.) I wish laptop/monitor reviews included LCD gamut as standard information.

[Jakeypooh]

I bought a 15in like 2 weeks ago... and it is flippin amazing, I really have yet to encounter 90% of the problems you 12inchers are talking about.... maybe its a 12in thing....

Actually, about the fan thing... I have had my PB sitting next to my head on a nightstand while I sleep and It has yet to wake me up.... and unless it is incredibly quiet I don't think I have ever noticed the fan at all... and I run safari along with garageband (6-8 tracks) and itunes....

[jæd]

Originally Posted by tie

Okay, I have had various more issues since last posting (e.g., laptop won't start up after going through airport security, this has happened several times now, is it the X-rays??). But I'll post something constructive for a change instead of just complaining.

Have just got a 12 powerbook and I haven't had the issues you describe. Before then I had a similar sized iBook G3. Again, no issues like you described.

But it does sound like either bad ram/harddisk, and I'd bet you its the former...

[NateEssex]

Well, I don't flame...that often.
I, unfortunately, have a school full of Dells. The last school I worked in had all Macs. There are SO many more issues with the Dells. XP has helped a lot, but I find OS X so much better. I really can't stand using a Windows machine. I started on Windows and moved to the Mac in 1991. I actually broke down and bought a PC in 1999 to play Everquest because most of my friends were playing it. I still did all my computing on my PowerBook. I guess to each his own. I just can't wait for the G5 Intel PowerBooks Add an Apple iPhone to replace my Treo 650 and I'd be all set.

[thingsthatgobump]

I got a 15" powerbook about 3 months ago, and it's my first mac. In the beginning it was fairly unstable, crashed weekly. After the latest patches things have gotten alot better though, and now I only have very minor problems left.

When I type on an external keyboard letters occasionally "echo" (have a thread about this in the os x section of the forum )

I have occasional problems waking up from sleep, especially if I put the notebook to sleep at home (with nothing plugged in) and then wake it up at work with an external monitor plugged into dvi, external keyboard and mouse ect. I know wake it up and then plug the devices in, and it seems to work alot better.

My last concern is the performance... It's not exactly fast. This is really not a big issue for me though, I don't really need anything faster. It's just that I notice it's slower then my old 2ghz centrino. (this is a 1.67ghz G4 with 1.5GB ram.

All in all I find the notebook to be great, and I really don't miss the pc at all. I also have a pc at work for running windows things, but it seems to be booted to Linux 99% of the time.

edit:

Maby I should mention something general from work. About 75% of the employees at the company I work for (in IT support) have a mac. It really seems there have been quality control issues, and there are some patches that suck bigtime. As an example, we have had to send over 50% of the 15" powerbooks received between december and march for repairs, and most of them have had the motherboard replaced.

[mdporter]

Originally Posted by kamina

My last concern is the performance... It's not exactly fast. This is really not a big issue for me though, I don't really need anything faster. It's just that I notice it's slower then my old 2ghz centrino. (this is a 1.67ghz G4 with 1.5GB ram.

The centrino has a much better bus speed, not to mention a faster clock speed. There's no mystery why it's faster.

Maby I should mention something general from work. About 75% of the employees at the company I work for (in IT support) have a mac. It really seems there have been quality control issues, and there are some patches that suck bigtime. As an example, we have had to send over 50% of the 15" powerbooks received between december and march for repairs, and most of them have had the motherboard replaced.

How many powerbooks have been purchased and sent for repairs? If your company bought two and sent one back, that's a 50% return rate. Please provide more context when speaking of failure rates.

[thingsthatgobump]

Sorry, for the vague figures...

I'd say I'm talking about 15 powerbooks, out of which 7-8 have gone back for repairs (part of them more then once). We have now had a silent moment waiting for macbook pros, and received about 15 of them this week. No big problems there yet.

edit: Actually I would imagine the 15 powerbooks contain 12 and 17" models too, so it could actually be that there where only 10-11 15" powerbooks and 7-8 of them have been back for repairs.

[mudzilla]

Originally Posted by kamina

Sorry, for the vague figures...

I'd say I'm talking about 15 powerbooks, out of which 7-8 have gone back for repairs (part of them more then once). We have now had a silent moment waiting for macbook pros, and received about 15 of them this week. No big problems there yet.

edit: Actually I would imagine the 15 powerbooks contain 12 and 17" models too, so it could actually be that there where only 10-11 15" powerbooks and 7-8 of them have been back for repairs.

I have to wonder why your IT department is buying first gen. MacBook Pros...

[itguy05]

Originally Posted by mdporter

The centrino has a much better bus speed, not to mention a faster clock speed. There's no mystery why it's faster.

Bus is good for a 0-10% speedup, which is barely noticeable. The clock speed is porobably repsonsible for that - the P-M is a highly efficient CPU.

[SEkker]

Originally Posted by kamina

Sorry, for the vague figures...

I'd say I'm talking about 15 powerbooks, out of which 7-8 have gone back for repairs (part of them more then once). We have now had a silent moment waiting for macbook pros, and received about 15 of them this week. No big problems there yet.

edit: Actually I would imagine the 15 powerbooks contain 12 and 17" models too, so it could actually be that there where only 10-11 15" powerbooks and 7-8 of them have been back for repairs.

Wow -- you sure have had a spat of bad luck! My group has extensively purchased Apple laptops for the past 4 years, with over 30 units purchased in total (including a new MBP) total. Of all these machines, we have had 4 returns for repair I can remember: one was an iBook with the known logic board repair, two were titaniums whose hinges gave up the ghost somewhere between 1 and 2 years of service, and one was a PB17.

MacIntouch's recent reliability survey demonstrated that Apple's laptops are less reliable than desktops, and for a few models the revB and later models are better than revA machines [but for many, the revA machines were overall just fine]. Consumer Reports places Apple laptops at or near the top of the list for reliability.

What I find amazing are some of the reliability numbers: the average computer purchased right now has something like a 1 in 6 chance of needing service right out of the box; this is close to 1 in 4 for an average laptop. Apple has done very well in this area recently.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by SEkker

Consumer Reports places Apple laptops at or near the top of the list for reliability.

For the 2005 survey Apple is in the middle of the pack, right behind Toshiba.

I'm always amazed by the quoted DOA rates; I've been through enough computers that I should have seen a few DOAs, yet I've never had one.

[SEkker]

Originally Posted by mduell

For the 2005 survey Apple is in the middle of the pack, right behind Toshiba.

I'm always amazed by the quoted DOA rates; I've been through enough computers that I should have seen a few DOAs, yet I've never had one.

I remember that survey -- it seemed to be hugely influenced by the odd problems with the Al pB15 screens. Anyone know where Apple sits in the latest numbers?

[mduell]

Originally Posted by SEkker

I remember that survey -- it seemed to be hugely influenced by the odd problems with the Al pB15 screens. Anyone know where Apple sits in the latest numbers?

The latest numbers on Consumer Reports site (based on more than 49,000 responses to our 2005 Annual Questionnaire, adjusted to eliminate differences among brands attributable to age) are as follows:
Percentage of laptops that were repaired or had a serious problem
Sony 16%
IBM 16%
Toshiba 17%
Apple 17%
HP 18%
Dell 18%
Compaq 19%
Gateway 19%
Differences of less than 3 points are not meaningful

I'm not surprised that they're all so close (within the margin of error), since they're all using the same ODMs.

[amazing]

sadly enough, even while people are experiencing waits for new MBPs, you can now get refurbed MBPs from Apple.

Sad commentary of Apple's quality control, imo!

[LagunaSol]

Originally Posted by mduell

For the 2005 survey Apple is in the middle of the pack, right behind Toshiba.

"Middle of the pack" is certainly misleading in this case (I'm not saying intentionally so), as there is such a small spread between top and bottom ratings as to be meaningless (as you pointed out in your subsequent post). So effectively any of the brands listed there could be deemed "best" or "worst." For this audience (MacNN), we can call Apple "number one" and do so truthfully.

The desktop reliability scores were more dramatic, with a 10-point spread between the best (Apple at 11%) and the worst (Gateway at 21%). 2nd and 3rd place go to Sony & Dell, with 15% each.

Originally Posted by amazing

sadly enough, even while people are experiencing waits for new MBPs, you can now get refurbed MBPs from Apple.

Sad commentary of Apple's quality control, imo!

I don't know how telling this really is about Apple's QC. They've probably sold a mountain of these things since launch, even with the shipping delays, and refurbs are to be expected even this early. Let's say they had a defect/return rate of only 1% - that would likely still be plenty of machines to list on the Apple Store as refurbs.

Also, one must consider the possibility that traditionally more demanding Apple customers results in a higher return rate.

MacBook Pro buyer with processor whine: "I can't stand this sound. I'm taking this back."

Dell notebook buyer with exact same processor whine: "What sound?"

or

"I don't care. My last Dell was noisier."

[mduell]

Originally Posted by LagunaSol

For this audience (MacNN), we can call Apple "number one" and do so truthfully.

You could, if you completely misunderstand what margin of error means.

[LagunaSol]

Perhaps you can enlighten me. 1% below the leader, with a margin of error of 3%, is a statistical dead heat, no?

Run the same survey again, and it's possible Apple would claim the top spot. Or any of the others for that matter. Is this not the case?

[LagunaSol]

Thanks professor. I opted out of Statistics in college and followed the liberal arts path instead.

Hard science aside, per Consumer Reports, and as you stated, differences of less than 3 points are not meaningful (I perhaps wrongly used the term "margin of error," as CR just said the difference is not meaningful - could be the same thing, maybe not...). So from a buyer's perspective (not a Statistics major's perspective), the brands listed are pretty much equal when it comes to reliability. Apple is generally no worse than Sony (at the top of the list), and no better than Gateway (at the bottom of the list) when it comes to laptops. "Middle of the pack" is technically accurate, but misleading when looking at the broad picture.

Again, desktops are another story.

But as I stated before, I wonder how customer expectations play into all of this. Apple buyers (at least the ones I know) are an obsessive bunch. After all, we're paying a premium for design and aesthetics. Look & feel (and sound) matter to us. A lot. Would a MacBook go in for a repair for a processor whine, while a Dell would not? How about a few dead pixels? A strip of the display slightly dimmer than the rest? Who knows. From what I know about myself as a Mac buyer, and my friends/relatives as PC buyers, I would guess yes. My PC laptop-using friends are happy as long as their machines power up. I sent my iBook in for repair because the display hinge squeaked. There is a vast gulf between us when it comes to product satisfaction.

My unscientific observation: my Apple equipment has always looked/felt like much higher graded equipment to me than my PCs (Dell, Compaq, and home-built). And the PCs have been understandably cheaper in price. I've not had any significant hardware problems with either. Sure, my PC laptop (a Compaq, if that matters) feels flimsy, the mouse buttons are uncomfortably stiff, the rubberized coating on the plastic scratches easily, the rear access door won't stay latched, the plastic around the LCD feels (and sounds) like a cheap toy, and overall it gives me the general impression of "crap," but it's soldiered on without stumbling. Reliable? Yes. Satisfying? No.

Would I trade it for a MacBook Pro if my employer would spring for it? In a heartbeat. Even if I were forced to use Windows on it all the time.

Of course if I were given a choice of PC laptops, being forced to use one, I would go with a ThinkPad. Which is no cheaper than a MacBook Pro.

What was the original topic of this thread again? I'm rambling...

[kitcho]

i am also a switcher. here are my thoughts one year later
my post recent pc (1.5 years ago) was a 1.4tbird athlon 256ram sapphire radeon 9600. decent computer, but i didnt realize what I had been missing until I had my 15 inch powerbook for a few weeks. I could write a proper essay on why macintosh computers are better for the average consumer and creative pros alike but i will keep it short and sweet. everyone who uses a computer has, if they realize it or not, a preception of what their computer should do/what they want their computer to do. some people value battery life, others value wireless internet or the number of usb slots (and im sure some pc users value simply being able to login to MySpace everyday.. nothing more). What makes macintosh superior to pc's is simply the "package value". when i bought my powerbook, i bought a complete multimedia computer. this "completeness" for lack of a better word is unmatched by any company selling computers today.

while most companies LOVE to sell you a computer, with windows, then *try* sell you hoards of software/services/products because the computer they are offering is simply incomplete (to see this in action, try buying a peecee from best buy). In contrast, apple works to provide a complete computing solution to their customers out of the box.

a very satisfied customer

[b1NARY73]

Originally Posted by kitcho

i am also a switcher. here are my thoughts one year later
my post recent pc (1.5 years ago) was a 1.4tbird athlon 256ram sapphire radeon 9600. decent computer, but i didnt realize what I had been missing until I had my 15 inch powerbook for a few weeks. I could write a proper essay on why macintosh computers are better for the average consumer and creative pros alike but i will keep it short and sweet. everyone who uses a computer has, if they realize it or not, a preception of what their computer should do/what they want their computer to do. some people value battery life, others value wireless internet or the number of usb slots (and im sure some pc users value simply being able to login to MySpace everyday.. nothing more). What makes macintosh superior to pc's is simply the "package value". when i bought my powerbook, i bought a complete multimedia computer. this "completeness" for lack of a better word is unmatched by any company selling computers today.

while most companies LOVE to sell you a computer, with windows, then *try* sell you hoards of software/services/products because the computer they are offering is simply incomplete (to see this in action, try buying a peecee from best buy). In contrast, apple works to provide a complete computing solution to their customers out of the box.

a very satisfied customer

Great to hear, I went from Mac to PeeCees for a bit ( Gaming ) then I reallized ( as I re-installed windoes XP for the 3rd time in one year ) that I have a Huge, really expensive video game machine ( I am OK with that ) but my powerbook get's my work done.... all the while sitting on my couch with my dog at my side. I went to the other side.... the grass is green..... it's just painted by Bill G.

[thingsthatgobump]

Originally Posted by mudzilla

I have to wonder why your IT department is buying first gen. MacBook Pros...

We don't really have a choice. Our mac dealer run out of 15" powerbooks, and we have alot of new employees (and old ones with lease agreements expiring).

We do understand the risks though

[mduell]

Originally Posted by kitcho

while most companies LOVE to sell you a computer, with windows, then *try* sell you hoards of software/services/products because the computer they are offering is simply incomplete (to see this in action, try buying a peecee from best buy). In contrast, apple works to provide a complete computing solution to their customers out of the box.

Yea, because Apple wouldn't try to upsell you on an extended warranty (AppleCare), additional hardware (USB modem), internet services (.Mac), office productivity apps (iWork), home networking hardware (Airport Express), a printer (HP, Canon, or Epson, with rebate)... er, yea.